Remember the story of Moses? The Egyptian pharaoh feared the growing number of Hebrews and ordered the slaughter of their newborn sons.
Did you ever wonder as I once had? If the population were too large, then why kill only the boys and spare the girls?
I believe now that Pharoah’s demonically inspired motives were to eliminate the men, thereby creating a female-majority population that could be more easily dominated and controlled. This would compromise the strength of the entire Hebrew nation.
The same devil operating in ancient Egypt is operating in modern-day America. As the enemy sees his end approaching, he has seemingly unleashed every demon in hell to destroy families by focusing his attacks on our children, especially our sons.
Why? The answer rests with our need for strong men to lead and protect our families, the bedrock of society. What does the enemy want to accomplish by targeting our boys? By destroying the boys, he aborts the men they would become.
We have seen this happening before our eyes. Too many of our boys and young men are failing in school and life, often uneducated and without marketable skills. The situation is dire, especially for our black and brown boys.
Once ignored, now several authors sound the alarm about this escalating tragedy: Boy Crisis (Dr. Warren Farrell), War Against Boys (Dr. Christina Hoff Sommers), Boys Adrift (Dr. Leonard Sax), and Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling (Richard Reeves), to name a few.
Educational data consistently show that boys are falling behind their female peers. Boys and young men are at the top of every negative metric (suspensions/expulsions, retentions, and dropout rates) and the bottom of every positive metric (graduation rates, test scores, and college attendance).
These youngsters sometimes struggle within an educational system that does not understand how their male brains and bodies affect their learning and behavior. Instructional programs tend to be girl-friendly, with curricula delivered primarily by women – female teachers who teach the way they themselves learn. This approach connects with the girls but not as much with the boys.
Parents who have witnessed the above can attest that such schools have failed to respond to their sons' academic needs. Consequently, moms and dads with a degree of flexibility have chosen other options: Christian or parochial schools, private schools, and increasingly, home instruction.
Still, the foundational principle is the same whether in the school classroom or a homeschool environment: Boys learn differently than girls learn.
When God shaped Adam and Eve with different bodies, He also made their male and female brains different from each other — different but not better than the other.
Numerous brain-based sex differences exist. For instance, the structure of the male brain favors spatial and mechanical processing. However, language processing is limited to only one hemisphere of the brain, which affects reading, writing, and speech. Conversely, in the female brain, language is processed in both hemispheres, which gives her more mental resources to develop those skills.
Furthermore, teachers have frequently noticed that their male students perform better at higher-level math skills (e.g., algebra, trigonometry, calculus) due to their brains’ spatial processing. On the other hand, female students usually perform better in reading and writing due to their brains’ increased resources for language processing.
Of course, there are exceptions, but exceptions do not deny the rule.
Understanding that boys learn differently than girls and should be taught differently is essential for all classroom teachers and those who wish to teach their children at home. The advantage of home instruction is the flexibility to incorporate strategies and choose methods to educate your son in the way he learns best.
Please note: Strategies that help our boys will not harm our girls! It may be discovered that girls who learn like their brothers could also benefit.
We should embrace and support male learning differences. Our boys are NOT defective girls who need to be medicated into submission to stifle their energy, calm them down, or make them more compliant. If your male students are constantly fidgeting and tapping or repeatedly inattentive and unfocused, Johnny, Jim, and Jerome may not be the ones who need re-evaluation.
First, examine your instructional methods and teaching style. Seek God’s wisdom for creative ideas for using movement to explain and inform. Perhaps, switch or modify the curricula by infusing new strategies and activities that are more boy-friendly.
In the 1980s, when educators observed that boys outperformed girls in math, science, and college attendance, America began overhauling the entire educational system. There was a concerted effort to boost girls’ achievement by rewriting math and science curricula, providing academic enrichment opportunities, creating supplemental resources, and modifying standardized testing. All this and much more were done with the ultimate objective of ensuring the continued success of our girls.
Should the same not be done for our boys?
Vermelle D. Greene, PhD
Dr. Vermelle Greene has been an educator for more than 50 years and has taught kindergarteners through graduate school professionals. She holds degrees from Dickinson College (BS in Biology), George Washington University (MA in Education), and International Seminary (PhD in Christian Education).
After retiring as a public school administrator, she founded S.A.C.R.E.D. Life Academy for Boys, a K-8 Christian school focused on building character and accommodating the educational needs of boys. As a member of the Maryland State Board of Education for five years, she was a passionate advocate for male student achievement and led the State Board’s initiative to improve academic equity and excellence for Black boys.
Dr. Greene is an educational consultant, author, conference speaker, teacher trainer/mentor, and homeschool grandparent. She and her husband, Vernon, live in Southern Maryland. They have two married children and six amazingly beautiful grandchildren.
Dr. Greene is the author of Please Teach Me Like I’m a Boy! – Ten Steps to His Success in School and in Life.
The views and opinions expressed in this writing are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the beliefs or positions of The Boys Initiative.